quarterly licenses from the Commerce Department's Office of International Trade.

The first three such licenses were issued and Tapline was well in stride. The pipe was being laid at an average speed of a mile a day, an almost fantastic achievement in view of the physical conditions. And then suddenly the OIT said: "No more licenses, at least for now."

It is not difficult to imagine the consternation, the confusion, in the Tapline offices from Ras el Mishaab to Beirut to San Francisco to New York. No reason was given then, or since, just no licenses.* The assumption was that there had been complaints that in a time of shortages at home there should be no such large shipments of critical materials to far parts of the world. And these complaints echoed loud in the ears of political office holders, even though it was demonstrated that less steel was required for Tapline than would be needed for the 65 tankers it would replace.

All this left Tapline with a fleet of 15 Liberty ships contracted for from the Isthmian Line to carry material half way around the world.